Karimov Heralds Reforms in Uzbekistan

“The Concept of further deepening the democratic reforms and establishing the civil society in the country” put forward by President of Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov, at the joint Session of Oliy Majlis (Parliament) of Uzbekistan, can be viewed as a road-map of Uzbekistan’s future social and economic development.

Mr. Karimov identified the main priorities and put forward a number of important legislative initiatives, which aim to strengthen the status of various democratic institutions like Parliament, NGOs, mass media, institutes of civil society, deepen the democratic, legal, political, and economic reforms in the country.

Speaking about the results accomplished in Uzbekistan during the years of independence, Mr. Karimov said that after gaining independence in 1991, country denied the obsolete totalitarian, administrative-command, and planning-distributive system and elaborated its own model – the “Uzbek model” of development. “Thanks to this, Uzbekistan’s GDP during less than 20 years of independence grew 3.5 times, while per capita ratio accounted for 2.5 times, real incomes of population grew 3.8 times, state expenses for social security grew 5 times. We consciously rejected the revolutionary option of reforms by the methods of “shock therapy” in favor of evolutionary and phased development. Thus, we protected our people from the harsh economic and social turbulence,” the President said.

According to the President, in 2008-2010 when almost the entire world was suffering the global economic and financial crisis, Uzbekistan recorded GDP growth at 9 percent, in 2009 8.1 per cent, in 2010 8.5 per cent, while in 2011 it is estimated to be 8.3 percent.

Despite these impressive achievements, the Uzbek President believes that the country has a long and difficult way to accomplish its man goal of building an open democratic and law-governed state with sustainable economy.“Euphoria and complacency, alienation from reality are the main dangers we may face on our way to the prime goal”, the President said.

Having identified democratization of state power and governance as one of main priorities for future development, Mr.Karimov said that this aims to implement the constitutional principle of separation of powers, create an effective system of checks and balances, strengthen the role of state power, and controlling functions of legislative and representative branches of power in all levels, as well as liberalize and ensure the independence of judicial system.

With a view to continuing the perfection of political system of the country as well as the system of state power and governance, the President has proposed to delegate some powers from the Head of country to the Parliament and Prime Minister.
 
Thus, it is suggested that the candidature of Prime Minister shall be nominated by political party, which gains the biggest number of seats in the Legislative Chamber of the Oliy Majlis (Lower House of Parliament), or by several political parties, which gain equal number of seats. After considering the candidature, the President, in ten days’ time shall submit it for the consideration and approval by both chambers of Parliament. The nomination shall be deemed approved, if more than a half of MPs vote for it. The members of the Cabinet of Ministers shall be approved by the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan upon the nomination of the Prime Minister.

In case of persistent contradictions between the Prime Minister and the Legislative Chamber of the Oliy Majlis with regard to the proposal officially submitted to the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan by at least one third of the members of the Legislative Chamber, the issue of passing the vote of no confidence in the Prime Minister shall be tabled at the joint sitting of both houses of Parliament. The vote of no confidence in the Prime Minister shall be deemed passed, if at least two thirds of members of both chambers of Parliament vote for it.

In this case, the President shall make a decision on relieving the Prime Minister from his post and entire Cabinet of Ministers shall resign along with the Prime Minister. The new candidature of the Prime Minister shall be nominated by the President following relevant consultations with all fractions of political parties represented in the Legislative Chamber of the Oliy Majlis.
 
If the Oliy Majlis refuse the President’s nominee for two times in a row, the Head of country shall appoint an acting Prime Minister and dissolve Parliament.
 
According to the President, these amendments introduce the new procedure of nomination and approval of the Prime Minister, which meets democratic principles, and gives Parliament the right to pass a vote of no confidence in the Prime Minister.
 
Reforming the judicial and legal system is the President’s yet another priority. In this regard, Mr. Karimov said that Uzbekistan has so far implemented a set of organizational and legal measures aimed at consistent consolidation of judicial power, ensuring independence of courts, turning them into a truly independent institution of state whose main job is to protect and safeguard the rights and freedoms of citizens.

President underlined that over the past couple of years Uzbekistan was able to take the judicial system out of control and influence of bodies of the executive power. Besides, Uzbekistan has established courts for civil and criminal cases which led to significant improvements in legal system. The guarantees of legal protection of citizens have been significantly reinforced.

According to the President, so far almost 75 percent of crimes were moved from the category of grave and the gravest crimes to the category of crimes, which do not represent serious public danger and the lesser grave crimes. Besides, now Uzbekistan widely uses penalty and restitution rather than arrest and detention for economic crimes.

Thanks to liberalization of legal system, Uzbekistan now has one of the lowest number prisoners per 100 thousand people which is only 166 prisoners. Meanwhile, in Russia it makes up 611 and in the United States – 738 prisoners. Besides, for over the last 10 years the number of prisoners in Uzbekistan fell two-fold. According to the President abolishing of death penalty in Uzbekistan from January 2008 and replacing it with life sentence has become the crucial moment of legal reforms in Uzbekistan so far.

Moreover, life imprisonment in Uzbekistan is an exceptional punishment and shall be enforced only for two counts of crimes – premeditated murder in aggravating circumstances and terrorism. At the same time this type of punishment may not be imposed upon women, persons who were below 18 years of age while committing the crime and men above 60 years of age.

The President said that introduction of “Habeas Corpus” has become yet another principle step forward in implementing the judicial reforms in the country. Since 2001 the institute of reconciliation was introduced in law-enforcement and judicial practice in Uzbekistan and has so far proven its effectiveness. Within this practice nearly 100,000 citizens were released from criminal liability.

The President put forward a number of initiatives on enhancing legal system of the country. For instance, Mr. Karimov suggests that it is expedient to deny the courts the authority to file a criminal case which will turn them into a real body justice rather than a body of legal prosecution.

President Karimov has also outlined the sphere of mass media, freedom of speech and information as yet another important and integral part of reforms.

For over the years of independence, and particularly, during the last 10 years, Uzbekistan implemented a large-scale set of organizational and legal measures with a view to ensuring the freedom of speech and liberalizing mass media. “For over this period ten acts of legislation have been adopted to provide an effective functioning of information space, dynamic and free development of mass media,” the President said.

According to the President, today the national system of telecommunications has direct international channels on 28 directions with an access to 180 countries worldwide. On-line broadcasting on Internet is also available.

As a result of this extensive work, the number of print mass media grew 1.5 times while electronic mass media grew 7 times and now makes up about 1200 mass media outlets. Nearly 53 per cent of all television channels and 85 per cent of radio channels are non-state. Mass media in Uzbekistan broadcast in 7 languages including English. The number of Internet users now exceeds 6 million.

Underlining the importance of ensuring the freedom of choice and development of the electoral legislation in Uzbekistan, which is yet another important part of proposed reforms, the President said that the country has developed effective and democratic electoral system. In particular, the Central Election Commission was given an exclusive power to prepare and hold elections which has become one of the crucial moments in the process of perfecting the electoral system. Under the law, any attempts to interfere in the election campaign by state bodies and authorities, as well as the public associations are prosecuted by law.

Meanwhile, the amendments to the law on elections of 2008 became an important stage in developing the electoral system. With increasing the number of seats from 120 to 150, of which 135 deputies are elected from political parties, 15 seats in the Legislative Chamber are allocated to the deputies from the Ecological movement of Uzbekistan. Besides, the electoral law now stipulates the norms that women should make at least 30 percent of nominees from political parties for deputy seats. Thanks to this norm currently 22 percent of the total numbers of MPs in the Oliy Majlis (Lower House of Parliament) are women while they make up 15 percent of MPs in the Senate (Upper House).

The President in his address put forward a number of initiatives aimed at ensuring equality during election campaign. Mr. Karimov also suggested banning campaigning not only on the Election Day but also the day prior to voting. According to the President, this norm is used in the legislation of several developed foreign countries and aims to give voters some more additional time to make up their minds and define their political preferences.

Developing the institutions of civil society was another sphere, the President outlined in his address. At present there are over 5.100 NGOs in Uzbekistan. It is 2.5 times more than in 2000. The number of citizens’ gatherings and the self-governance bodies exceeds 10,000. Such national institutions on human rights as the Ombudsman, National Center for Human Rights, Institute for Research of Public Opinion, Institute of Monitoring the Current Legislation have been successfully operating in the country. So far over 200 laws and legislative acts related to enhancing the role and importance of institutes of civil society have been adopted in the country.

The President believes that adoption of the Law “On social partnership” may have a profound significance in ensuring further development of civil society institutions, strengthening their role in providing transparency and efficiency of ongoing reforms.
 
Mr. Karimov also suggests that it is high time to adopt the Law “on public control in the Republic of Uzbekistan”, aimed at creating the systematic and effective legal mechanism of control on the part of society and civil institutions over the implementation of laws by bodies of state power and governance.
 
Finally, the President suggested further deepening the market reforms and continuing with liberalization of economy. According to the President, so far, Uzbekistan adopted and successfully enacted over 400 laws on economic and market reforms. Yet, it is a long way to go.

The President believes that in order to improve the system of management and eliminate the excessive bureaucratic obstacles, it will be important to draft and adopt the Law “On licensing procedures in the sphere of entrepreneurial activity”. “We need to clearly define the strictly limited shortlist and types of licensing procedures required to do business, thus resolutely cutting the excessive restrictions and setting forward the legislative prohibition on introduction of the new types of licenses and licensing procedures not envisaged by law,” the President said.

Mr.Karimov also put forward the idea of defining the new organizational and legal forms of business – the family business. “I am confident that establishing the legislative basis for its organization shall allow improve the legal guarantees of family business, bring about the conditions for a rapid and extensive development of family business in different branches of economy,” the President observed.

In conclusion one could say that initiatives put forward by President Islam Karimov open a new phase in the implementation of political, democratic, economic and legal reforms in Uzbekistan. Successful and timely implementation of President Karimov’s initiatives will enhance Uzbekistan’s leading positions in political and economic arena, as well as turn Uzbekistan into the captain of democratic reforms in Central Asia.